October 2026
The 2026 New York City Parent Survey: What Child Care Parents Want
Nearly half of NYC parents don’t have the type of child care they most want, and preferences shift dramatically as kids grow. As the city builds toward universal child care, survey findings provide a clearer picture of what families want and need.
Contributors: Alyson Silkowski, Loris Toribio
Issues Areas: Child care
New Survey of 4,300+ NYC Parents Reveals What Families Actually Want From Child Care — and the System Isn’t Delivering It
This survey — designed by the New Practice Lab at New America and Robin Hood in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office of Child Care and Early Childhood Education and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago — is the largest representative survey ever of NYC parents with children under six, with 4,306 respondents from every school district in the city. It finds that 47 percent overall aren’t getting the type of care they most want, and 39 percent say they have less care than they need. Preferences shift sharply with a child’s age: parents overwhelmingly want to provide care themselves in a child’s first year, but by age three, 69 percent most want a formal child care setting — with that demand varying widely by neighborhood and income. Still, a combined 92% of parents want formal child care at some point before their child turns four, or would be open to it if it were free.
39
%
Of parents say they have less care than they need
47
%
Of parents don’t have the type of child care they most want
92
%
Of parents want formal child care at some point before age four - or would be open to using it if it was free
The findings point to three clear priorities the city should consider as it implements universal child care:
- Make paid parental leave part of a universal child care strategy since four in five parents wanted more time off than they took;
- Build real flexibility into 2-K, 3-K, and voucher programs to match families’ nontraditional schedules and varying needs; and
- Invest in multilingual, multicultural outreach to close awareness gaps and ensure all families know about existing programs to support access to affordable child care
Above all, the survey finds trust in a caregiver matters more to parents than cost or location, a reminder that a successful universal system has to earn families’ confidence, not just expand seats.
